Ballad of the Broken Seas - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

I don't think there is any other art form were seemingly incompatible musicians are thrown together. It's almost as I some mad scientists are dabbling and experiments with musical atoms: haphazardly combining them in the hope of creating a new element whilst the atoms, oblivious to the fact, do their best to oblige.

It doesn't happen anywhere else. We don't see artists collaborating on a painting; Damien Hurst and David Hockney would make a strange artistic pairing. As far as I know Picasso didn't lend a hand to Matisse saying, "I'm really good with noses,
you do the ears and mouth".

Take The Eurythmics, for example. The sweet and mellow voice of Annie Lennox mixed with electronic synthesised music. On paper it sounds awful. In practice..... well the sales speak for themselves. But these aren't the only ones; Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews, Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, David Bowie and Bing Crosby, Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman, Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. If these weren't do famous you'd think I was making them up.

So if you have ever wondered what it would sound like if you took a whisky soaked rasp of a voice and combined it with that of an angel it probably wouldn't sound a million miles from this album; one moment it's dreamy almost ethereal and then in another it's raw and emotional. I'll let you draw your own conclusions which part Isobel and Mark bring to the musical brew. Again, on paper at least, it sounds like it shouldn't work but it does. Magnificently. These melancholic tales really benefit from the duo's contrasting vocal styles; 'Saturday's Gone' has a light and airy feel whereas 'Ramblin Man' has a distinct 'Man in black' sound. When the thin veil of sadness is lifted, such as on 'Honey Child What Can I Do?', the music soars.

It's comforting that such partnerships are tolerated and indeed encouraged. So if indeed there are mad chemists at work in the musical gods then I wish them well on their next experiment. In fact, here are a couple of suggestions for them; Michael Stipe and Bjork, John Lydon and Adele, Bono and Madonna, Morrissey and Marr.... now I'm just getting silly!